The Ministry of Forest’s yearly budget always lasted until the end of February. Thirty years ago as we approached March of 1995, something happened at work that I found disgusting and always gave government agencies a bad name. One of our Forest Service supervisors came around and told me that the “Executive” had told them that our Forest District had an excess of money left, and that it “had to be spent.”
He was going to each employee in our office, asking everyone to find things they could spend money on. He was looking for expensive things like computer workstation, and other such “Big Ticket” items.
The only thing I could think of that I might useful for my mapping, was a small portable GPS unit that could be taken into the bush for surveys, then could import the resulting survey points into my computer. Those kind of GPS units are common place now, but in 1995, they were very high tech. Such a unit would really save me a lot of time in my map making, because at the time, I always had to take all of the compass bearings recorded by surveyors in the bush on paper, then plot them out manually, before I could use the shape of the road or logged area, into the computer onto a digital map.
My diary didn’t tell me whether or not we actually got the GPS unit, it just told me that I was disgusted with the idea of being forced to quickly spend the money, or our district would lose it. It seemed more logical to me that money not spent during one year, should just be added onto the next year’s budget so it be used then for things our Forest District needed.
Take a look at my paintings at davidmarchant2.ca
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